


Washed up, up-side-down, backwards

by SharkEnthusiast



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (hopefully), Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent Friendship, Adam Parrish Has No Chill, Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish is Bad at Feelings, Cute Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, Dead Noah Czerny, F/M, Farmer Ronan Lynch, Gansey Boy!!!, Gen, Ghost Noah Czerny, Hurt Adam Parrish, Irish Ronan Lynch, M/M, Nerd Richard Gansey III, Noah Czerny Deserves The World, Noah Czerny is a Little Shit, Psychic Abilities, Richard Gansey III is a Good Friend, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent Fluff, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent Friendship, Ronan Lynch Has Feelings, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish Fluff, blue sargent is a good friend, knowing me this will be an angst train, psychic adam parrish, she just thinks shes not cause she needs a little space, the title of this document is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23072002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkEnthusiast/pseuds/SharkEnthusiast
Summary: Richard Gansey III arrives in Blue’s washed up, backward town in July. Streak of dark hair, honeyed smile, searching for mysteries. Her mother, over the phone, declares he smells like trouble.Blue agrees.It was Blue and Adam first, page of cups, magician. Then Noah, broken skull, chest aching from sorrow, dead. Ronan, dreamer of dreams, of puzzles and ravens and brothers.Richard Gansey III. White teeth, shaky hands, a king.The Raven Cycle, altered.
Relationships: Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent, Declan Lynch & Matthew Lynch & Ronan Lynch, Declan Lynch & Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny & Adam Parrish, Noah Czerny & Blue Sargent, Noah Czerny & Richard Gansey III, Noah Czerny & Ronan Lynch, Richard Gansey III & Adam Parrish, Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, The Brothers Lynch
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	1. One.

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty. This emerged from me wondering about Ganseys adventures in Wales before the series started, inserting Blue and Adam into it, and adding farmer Ronan.  
> The result is this, and I am so sorry for that.
> 
> Blue and Adam are english, Noah is welsh, Ronan is Irish, and Gansey is american and very enthusiastic. They are all 20, just for fun. 
> 
> If you do not like Blue & Adam as a friendship, this is not for you. They are my favorites, so I write a lot of them.
> 
> Disclaimer. I am not from the United Kingdom. I am deeply sorry if any of this is in anyway irritating, wrong, or unrealistic. I did some research, and I am trying my best. Sorry
> 
> Other disclaimer. I have 2 other fics outside of this, so my update schedule is nonexistint. It could be days, it could be weeks it could be months. Again, sorry.

Richard Gansey III arrives in Blue’s washed up, backward town in July. Her mother, over the phone, declares he smells like trouble. 

Blue agrees. 

Teff, Wales is not a town for people. Not a town for Americans like Gansey, with broad shoulders and broad accents. 

Teff is a town for magic. For ley lines and myths, for tarot readings. For Blue, Adam, and Noah, battery, magician, ghost. 

Blue and Adam moved out of her mother’s house a year ago when Maura declared that there were better things to do than mope around the house in Rochdale. Blue, at the time, hadn’t known that moving out meant dragging Adam along with her to open a store that sold tea and the occasional tarot reading, hadn’t known that moving to Teff meant ley line mapping, becoming the towns crazy people, and a vague list of instructions from her mother to  _ fix it. _

They’ve only been here for a year, and the only thing they’ve fixed so far is the leaky faucet and Adam’s car. 

“Blue,” Adam says, phone balanced between his shoulder and ear. He’s watering the plants that adorn the ceiling above the reading table, standing on a rickety old stool that he uses for its mysterious carvings and dramatic effect. “Noah’s coming over at 1.”

Blue sighs. Unsticks her thighs from the leather chair, stands up to face Adam. 

“He doesn’t usually tell us.” 

“He says it’s important. Something ghosty, probably.” 

“Get down from there. Imagine my mother’s surprise when you break your goddamn neck because you fell while watering plants.”

Adam rolls his eyes. He strongly resembles a teenager, even though he turned 20 last July. 

“Watering plants is a good way to die.” He mumbles, steps down from the stool, returning the phone back to its cradle. Blue smacks him. She doesn’t want to think about him dying anytime soon. 

“Is Noah worse?” 

They don’t often talk about this. Don’t often talk about the decomposition of the body on the ley line that happened to come back as a ghost and become their best friend. Don’t talk about the repetitions of his death, the flickering, the cold, crying, dry heaving. 

Adam drops the boyish, full-blown grin. Walks past her into the kitchen, sets down the watering can in its place behind the toaster. 

“Yeah. He doesn’t seem to have any good days anymore.” 

Good days mean normal ones. Ones without the wailing, just sly smiles, Blink 182, hands reaching to pet Blue on the head. 

“He’s coming over at one?” Blue supplies, fussing with the tea cabinet. No wonder their neighbors think they’re married. Blue looks like the picture-perfect housewife right now, rummaging around in all their shit, hair a frazzled mess, apron tied around her waist from trying to make eggs for breakfast. 

She rips the apron off.  _ God. _

“Yeah. Have you picked the leaves for Mrs. Tyler’s order yet?”

“No.” 

“I can do it, then.” 

Adam goes off to grab the leaves from the garden, and Blue repositions herself back into her chair. Thinks. It’s days like these, slow and dripping like honey, that make Blue ache for something more than the drafty house, more than deliveries by bike, more than day in, day out. More than watching Adams thin fingers flip over card after card, eyes unnervingly intense, speaking of the future, past, present, nine of swords, two of pentacles,  _ the magician. _

When Blue was 14, Adam Parrish had stumbled into 300 Fox Way with finger-shaped bruises around his neck and enough power inside him for Persephone to set her tea down and whisper  _ oh dear. _ And when Blue was 16, Adam had appeared on her doorstep, beaten close enough to death for him to bleed all over the welcome mat, so Blue pretends she doesn’t want to leave him in this drafty house with his own thoughts a nightmares that he wakes up from with vines around his neck. Pretends she doesn’t hate Teff even more than Rochdale, because Teff is  _ magic, _ and it is painful how indifferent to it all she is. 

Blue is sensible. Selfish, jealous. Backward and up-side-down. She hates how’d she leave the monotony in a second, even if it meant leaving her best friend (brother), dusty hair, old blue eyes and all. She hates it. It doesn’t make her change her mind though. 

She stands up. Reaches for the watering can by the toaster, and goes out to water the flowers by the door. 

17, aching with power. Maura signs adoption forms and buys an extra bed from Finn Smith down the road. When he can’t sleep, Calla stays up with him as he does his homework and Persephone bakes pies, stays up late perfecting a hand-drawn tarot deck specifically for him. 

18, and Blue’s family loves him so much she can’t even fight with him in a voice louder than a whisper. Because he is traumatized and breakable, came from a home that dealt in broken bones instead of kisses, in stitches, broken glass, learning to walk silently through the hall and avoiding the creaky boards. 

19, and she’s out, and she loves him. 

20, and she still feels 14. She still wants something more. 

Adam waves at her from inside. 

“Hey, don’t forget about the ones on the right, too!”

Something crumples, burns, tears. 

_ Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam. _

Blue is so sorry she could die. 


	2. Two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue, Adam, and Gansey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for why this took so long other than that lack of social interaction has made me extremely unmotivated! I miss seeing people!  
> Anyway, here is a new chapter, although it is a lot worse than the first one!   
> Hope you enjoy!

Maura was right. Richard Campbell Gansey III does smell like trouble.

He reeks of it. Reeks of old American money, of slow southern accents, of dinner parties spent talking idly about the weather and if cheese souffle is worth the effort. 

He smells like trouble because he is. 

The 50-something woman who stops him on the street, bag of potatoes clutched between her hands, tells him she knows what he needs. She tears a piece of her grocery list off and scribbles a phone number and address. Gives him a smile, says he reminds her of her son.

Gansey arrived in Teff last week, and this is it. He can feel it. Can feel the ley line, can feel the tilt of the world, the static in the air. 

He dials the number.

“Hello, this is Blue. How can I help you?”

“Hello, Blue. My name is Richard Campbell Gansey III. I was given this number by a woman named Cora.”

The person on the other end sighs. He can hear the clicking of a pen, the rustling of paper. 

“I’m assuming you want an appointment? We have an empty slot for today at 12:30.”

“Well, I’m not sure. What is this appointment for?”

“Depends on what you want. We have consultations about tea, house plant babysitting, tarot readings.” 

“Tarot?”

“Mhmm.”

_ “I know what you need,”  _ Cora whispers in his head, eyes scarily clear. 

Malory did say to find a psychic. That it’d help with the ley line, help with the corpse road, help with  _ you will live because of Glendower. _

“Okay. May I take the empty slot at 12:30?”

Blue gets Adam to open the door for most of their clients because his high cheekbones and pretty eyes are more unnervingly magic than a 5ft woman. She sends him to get Richard Gansey, who arrives at 12:30 exactly, still wearing his topsiders and a polo shirt in the shade of maroon. Blue thinks that he must be a perfect picture of wealthy white American 20-somethings, wide smiles, charming dimples, broad shoulders, and sculpted jaws. 

“Hello,” Blue hears Adam say. “Richard Gansey?” 

“Gansey, please. And you are-?”

“Adam Parrish.” She can hear Adam pad down the hall. She bought him a pair of converse for his 17th birthday, and even though the soles are worn through and the fabric is fraying, he insists on keeping them. “Blue!” Adam calls, voice soft around the edges. 

“Yes!” She calls back, grabbing Adam’s deck of tarot cards from the kitchen table and avoiding knocking her head into a hanging plant. She walks to the reading room, deposits the cards onto the reading table and flops into the extra armchair in the corner. 

“Thank you,” Adam says. He is focussed on Gansey, lips pursed. 

Gansey unclasps his hands, sticking out one of them in Blue’s direction. 

“I’m Gansey. I believe we spoke on the phone?” 

Blue doesn’t usually trust Americans. Doesn’t usually trust  _ boys _ , either, because, after a break up for both Blue and Adam, they both agreed that they are complete twats. She certainly doesn’t trust rich boys, but it is a nice gesture for him to acknowledge Blue’s presence. 

“We did.”

“You two are quite young,” Gansey says. Adam flicks his eyes to Blue, then returns them to Gansey. Blue’s chest aches with how true it is. 

“My age, surely. Anyway, shall we start? Something short and simple, please, I don’t want to waste your time.” 

Gansey seems to be this odd mix of young boy and old man. Blue is not quite sure what it all means. 

“Alright then.” Adam shuffles the cards, long fingers bending them into a bridge and then letting them fall flat again. He taps them once, knuckles loud on the deck. “Now you.” Adam slides the cards over the table, and Gansey takes them, carefully, holding them like a valuable item. (They are. Adam would probably freak if anything happened to them.)

“I’m sorry,” Gansey says, suddenly, and Blue is very scared that he is actually about to do something to Adam’s cards. “I don’t think I need this reading.”

Blue shifts. 

Adam looks amused. 

“Oh?”

“I need some clairvoyant consultation.”

“Oh?”

“Do y’all know anything about ley lines?” Gansey reaches into the back pocket of his khakis and removes a piece of paper. Unfolding it, he smooths it over the table. Adam leans forward, and Blue gets up to hover over his right shoulder. “One goes right over Teff. I just figured that you’re psychics, and you deal with energy.” Gansey cuts off. Stares at Blue’s standing position flicks his focus to the tarot deck still grasped in his hands. He pushes them back to Adam. 

They do know about the ley lines. They’re the whole reason why Blue and Adam are here, the reason why Maura calls every week. Why Noah is even here, and why he flickers more often than not. They know the ley line, and they know something is wrong with it. The knowledge that this stranger seems to know that too makes something inside of Blue uneasy and terrified. 

She carefully arranges her words.

“I’m not sure we’re familiar.”

Adam does not react. 

“They’re straight lines of energy that crisscross the globe. Do you know anything about that?”

Blue turns. Imitates her mother. 

“I don’t do well with specifics.”

Ganseys clothes scrape together as he stands up, and Blue turns back around. 

Adam’s fingers are still silent on the tarot deck. From here, Blue can see how Gansey’s hair doesn’t curl over his ears (he probably gets it cut every two weeks), how he has a smile like a politician, how the neck on his t-shirt isn’t worn, how young Blue and Adam both must look to this regal figure that is Richard Campell Gansey III. 

“I’ll call you if I remember,” She says. 

“Alright,” Gansey says back. He hands her a business card. Blue takes it.

The door creaks shut as he leaves. The reading room still smells like mint. 

Adam turns around in his chair. Stands up, takes the business card from where blue had dropped it into the waste bin. 

“Blue,” Adam says. Blue hates him like this, all calculating, like Blue is a problem he can solve.

“What,” she snaps. “He knows, isn’t that concerning? You were the one that was paranoid when we got here. What happened to that?”

“We still don’t know what's wrong with the ley lines. We’ve tracked it, I’ve moved stones and scried, and we still haven’t found  _ shit. _ He could help us. He’s done research and has maps and it feels right, Blue. I’m sick of just sitting on my ass making tea. This could be something.”

Adam is still standing, and Blue is still staring.

She is selfish for this. Half stupid, irrational. She does not want Richard Gansey. Does not want him to take Adam Parrish away from her, even though Blue has been thinking about leaving him since they moved. She doesn’t want another addition to Adam and Blue, happy and tumbling, and violent and mysterious. 

She is a silly, silly girl. She hates herself for it. 

“I’m going to call Persephone,” Adam says. 

“Okay,” she says back. 

Adam calls Persephone, and Blue makes tea. 

_ Adam, Adam, Adam.  _

Blue feels unknowable. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ronan is in the next chapter! And Noah was supposed to be in this one, but I forgot and don't want to add it in. Sorry!


	3. Three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is mega short! Sorry!

Adam goes to the farmers market. 

He’s tired, just like always. Shaky hands, shaky voice, purple rimmed eyes.

Richard Campbell Gansey is a whirlwind in 6 syllables, a charming accent, a firm handshake, a word with too many vowels. The kind of boy that has so much money he overflows with it. Tiring. 

Adam does not think he’s ever been around wealth like that before. 

He hates when he and Blue fight. More often than not, it is Adam’s fault that they do at all. 

Adam is sick of longing. Sick of his shitty watch, sick of  _ Camellia Sinensis,  _ of fixing the car, of the ley lines. 

(He could have gone to Oxford. It had been an endpoint, a destination, an escape route. And then his father had almost killed him, and then he had missed too much class, and then he had dropped out.)

He is sick of longing and sick of exhaustion, and so he takes his bike to the farmers market to buy carrots and ask for a favor. 

Ronan Lynch is there, just like he always is. Sharp grin, sharp nose, sharp smile.  _ Greywaren _ . 

“Lynch,” Adam says when he arrives at his stall. Allows his mouth to fall into a tentative smirk, allows his eyes to rake Ronan over. Allows. 

“Parrish,” Lynch says back. Reaches for a paper bag from his vantage point behind his produce. “What’ll it be?” 

It is irrational how much Ronan’s Irish accent makes Adam’s lips curl up into a smile. 

Adam is sensible. More sensible than Blue, anyway, and rude Irish farmer boys should  _ not _ do things to his stomach. 

“A bundle of carrots.” 

Ronan puts them into a bag. Adam watches his hands and his eyes and the curves of his triceps. 

Watches his careful, twisted mouth, his careful, perfect teeth, his strangeness, and magic. 

Adam knows all about Ronan Lynch. Ronan Lynch doesn’t know half as much about him. 

(When he scries, he always appears, dreaming, drifting, circled by ravens, runes, rarities.  _ Ronan Lynch, son of a dreamer and a dream. Greywaren. _ )

“Anything else?” 

“A favor.” 

Ronan raises a brow. His demon dream bird lets out a long, prolonged scream, and Adam’s mouth curves into a smile. 

A raven. A dream.  _ Corvo regem. _

“Do you need to steal my shovel again? Some of my hair, maybe, for one of your creepy ass rituals?” 

“Psychic, Lynch. Not a witch. Been listening to the locals’ rumors, have you?”

“Oh, fuck off. What do you need?”

Adam does not know, entirely. Persephone’s voice echoes in his head, broken record player, scratched CD,  _ “Inside yourself, it’s only you who can help you”. _

Ronan’s eyes are still pinned on Adam. 

Adam usually believes in individuality. Not today. 

Something in his stomach pulls. 

_ Greywaren, rota fortunae, posterum.  _

“Your raven.”

Ronan frowns, scoffs, crosses his arms. Adam continues. 

“And a cell phone. I need to call someone.”

“The phone, sure, but not fucking Chainsaw. Anything else, Parrish? Or am I just supposed to give you my bird for no reason?”

Something is pulsing behind Adam’s eyes. He shuts them. Breathes in through his nose. Leaves rustle, vines snap. Teff as a whole twists everything out of proportion, transforms it into something else. The entire town smells like burning sage. Adam focuses. Grass rustles. Birds cry. Something is calling. Something deserving of discovery. 

Adam opens his eyes, and Ronan is staring at him. 

_ Corvo regem, Corvo regem, Corvo regem. _

“Your land is on the ley line, yes?” Adam asks. Chainsaw screams again. A man falls into place behind Adam. 

“What the fuck, Parrish. Yeah. What the fuck is going on?”

Ronan’s eyes are blue. Icy water. Cool, sharp, dangerous.

“Vos scitis, Greywaren. Corvo regem.” 

Ronan does not look shocked. He looks indifferent, face neutral. 

“Glyndŵr.” 

Adam calls Richard Campbell Gansey III on Ronan’s phone while the farmers market closes. Chainsaw is flying overhead, and when Gansey’s voice cracks out a careful hello from the other end, Adam jumps. 

“Yes, hello. This is Adam Parrish from your reading.”

“Adam! How are you?”

He does not know how to respond to that, so he shifts the phone from one ear to the other. Clears his throat. 

_ Corvo regem _ . 

Glyndŵr. 

“We’re finding your king.”

“When?” 

“Whenever. Now. Tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. Meet at the house.”

Gansey is silent on the other end, and so Adam brings it away from his ear. Hangs up. 

Blue will be mad. Adam doesn’t care. 

They are finding Gansey’s sleeping king. 

Whenever, now, tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do i like writing stories that don't really follow a plot and are just there cause I want more character interactions? Yes! Is that problematic? Yes! Do I have anything planned for this story? Uh, yeah, Ronan trips over a rock, and Noah adopts a hedgehog.


End file.
